When
reading Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, he most interesting thing I found
about it was the small discussion about character design.
The idea that he portrays is that the human race is so
conceited, that when looking at a simplified human face; such as a default
smiley face J
we see ourselves in it. And because of that we are able to sympathize with the
information or the emotion better because we are now imaging ourselves in the
story. With this technique we are no longer observing the story, but instead extending
ourselves into the story and fully immersing ourselves into the story’s lore.
His example of this was the very way he drew himself in the
comic. Instead of seeing him as his own character, we are instead seeing him as
an extension of ourselves. Instead of someone else explaining the terms and
ideas in a comic book, we are using the little voice in our head to make him
talk and move around on the pages. He brings this up well when he draws himself
as a realistic man instead of the simplified person. When doing this it gave
his drawing a personality outside of our own. Forming a stranger on the page
that we don’t know anything about, and the mind is quick to wonder whom this
person is. But when he was simplified we didn’t care about who he ‘is’, because
he was just another piece of the viewer.
I have heard this theory before but put in a different
context. Some believe the reasons Groot was such a hit in the movie, Guardians
of the Galaxy, was because he had an extremely simplified face. Although the
character said one line throughout the entire move, we understood to his
emotions and could see ourselves in the character. Unlike the other characters
that formed a personality of their own, you were able to put your self in
Groot’s possession and sympathize with him the easiest.
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